Tag Archives: science

Cleaning Coins Science Activity

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I love finding easy activities to do with Buddy that involve things I already have in my home. It makes me especially happy when I come across an activity that is also helpful or useful in some way. This cleaning pennies activity is a little bit of both.

We are going to Disney World later in the month, and I wanted to clean some pennies to use in the pressed penny machines. Buddy has loved doing these at zoos in the past, and I know there are a ton of different machines available at Disney World. I decided it would be fun to try some different methods to clean up the pennies and make them shiny and ready for pressing.

Here are our pennies and mini m&ms canister before we started.

I read somewhere that you can use vinegar and salt or ketchup to clean off pennies. Buddy and I decided to try both methods to see what was easiest and worked the best. We started with ketchup because that seemed like it would be the most fun for Buddy.

We put a bunch of old pennies in a bowl, and Buddy squirted a bunch of ketchup on top of it. I also filled up a separate bowl with water. Buddy and I each took a penny, rubbed it in ketchup, wiped it off with a paper towel, and then dropped it into the water.

Cleaning with ketchup is so much fun!
A view of our whole ketchup cleaning station.

I thought it was kinda gross and sticky, but Buddy thought it was a lot of fun! It did an ok job of cleaning the pennies, but neither of us were impressed with the results. The pennies were shinier than they had started, but there was still a lot of dirt on them.

Our pennies after the ketchup cleaning.

The next method we tried was using vinegar and salt. There are lots of sites with different information about this strategy, but they all suggest mixing 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1 teaspoon of salt. I doubled this recipe to have a little more liquid. One site suggested putting in 5 pennies at a time in the solution for 10 seconds, and then following with a rinse in water. So that was the second method we tried.

Cleaning our pennies five at a time in the vinegar.

Buddy enjoyed all of the counting with this method. We’d count out five coins, and then count the 10 seconds. Then we’d rub them around in the salt, and then move to a new bowl of water. It took awhile, but Buddy seemed to have fun with this process.

After the second round of cleaning, the pennies looked even better. But there was still a lot of dirt on them! Buddy examined them and decided we should try one more thing.

The pennies are looking better, but they’re not done yet.

I found a different website that recommended doing a longer soak in the vinegar, which made sense to me. It also said to put in a whole bunch of pennies, but to make sure that they weren’t overlapping on the bottom. We did the same vinegar solution, and this time we laid out all of the coins on the bottom. Then we set a timer for 5 minutes.

Buddy put a lot of care into laying the pennies out neatly.

After 5 minutes, we took them out one at a time. Then we brushed them off with a tooth brush and put them into fresh water. When all of them were done, I put them in a metal colander and rinsed them thoroughly under running water.

After the third round of cleaning, we had many that were Disney World worthy. And some that still weren’t. It was a little frustrating to both of us. Fortunately, we had some other new and shiny pennies that we could add to our newly cleaned penny collection, and that was more than enough for what we needed.

Our final set of cleaned coins. The top half are Disney worthy. The bottom half were still too dirty for our liking.

Once everything was dried off, we filled our mini m&m container with two quarters and a penny alternating all the way to the top. I used a gold sharpie to add a little extra sparkle to it. We’re both excited to have all of our pennies ready to go for Disney World!

Toddler Science: Jellybean Experiment

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I love finding activities to do with Buddy with materials I already have at home. When I came across the idea of doing a jellybean water experiment on Crafty Morning’s blog, I knew it would be fun and easy to do with Buddy. All you need is jellybeans, a plate, and a little water.

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We started the experiment by making a circle of jellybeans on a plate. As we set things up, we talked about the different colors of jellybeans. I asked Buddy what he thought would happen when we added water, and he didn’t know. I put some water into a squeeze bottle, so it would be easy for him to squirt. He added water just until the edges of the jellybeans were wet. Then we sat back and watched. 

The colors started to bleed right away. I told Buddy how the water was dissolving the candy and the jellybeans’ colors were blending into the water. He was really interested in watching the colors come out into the middle. The black ones dominated the other colors, so if I were to do it again, I wouldn’t include the black jellybeans.

Once the colors had come out, we wondered what would happen if we blew on the water. At first, the red color went on top of the black color, and Buddy thought this was amazing!

Then we tried again, and all of the colors mixed together to form black. What Buddy found most  interesting was when he blows hard it made a hole in the water. 

The last thing we did was see what happened to the jellybeans. We discovered the top side was still shiny, but the part that was in the water was all bumpy! Buddy wanted to try a dissolved jellybean, so I let him have one.

This was a fun and easy experiment! Buddy and I both enjoyed it, and I think he learned something new. I’m sure we’ll try it again next Easter.

Bubbling Colors: A Science Activity for Toddlers

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For Try Something New Thursday, I wanted to do a science activity. I’d seen several different activities with baking soda and vinegar on Pinterest. Since I had both of those ingredients on hand, it seemed like a good activity to try. I especially loved the hidden colors activity on Busy Toddler’s blog, so I decided to try it.

To start, I put two old muffin tins into my sensory bin. Then, I put several drops of food coloring in each cup of two muffin tins. Some of the cups had just one color, and some of them had two different colors. Then, I poured some baking soda in each cup. I put the vinegar in a water bottle from the dollar store. With the cap open, the vinegar dribbled out slowly. It was perfect for Buddy to pour the vinegar on the baking soda. 

I set out the materials for Buddy to explore. Buddy initially wanted to explore them with his hands. But once I showed Buddy the water bottle of vinegar, he was excited to pour it into the cups. He loved the bubbles that came up! It took a little while before we could see any color, but that was extra exciting once they showed up.

Buddy was happy to keep pouring the vinegar into the baking soda. The longer we did it, the better we could see the colors. He kept walking around the container making sure that he got into all of the muffin tin cups. 

Once most of our bubbles were gone, I shook out the top of each tin into the bin. After I did that, it exposed the extra baking soda that was still dry. Then we were able to continue our experiment. 

This was a fun and easy activity. Buddy really had a lot of fun, and it was easy to clean up. I love that Buddy had a chance to do a science experiment. Hopefully, we will be able to do another experiment sometime this summer.

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